


longer than the road that stretches out ahead

by blindbatalex



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Can you believe?, M/M, Road Trips, Soft Husbands, and is kind of annoying but, cuddles in the open air, ofc there is imagery about the sea, shameless fluff, virtually no angst, well one soft husband is annoyed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 12:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13613802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: Patrice groaned. He was the one who trusted Brad with the one crucial aspect of a road trip despite knowing him for years. He deserved to be stranded on a stretch of road with no sign of civilization in sight and no phone signal for not heeding years of evidence alone.





	longer than the road that stretches out ahead

**Author's Note:**

> Consider this atonement for that other very angsty ficlet I wrote.

“I don’t understand,” Patrice said, looking at the smoke coming from their car with concern, “I thought you had the car checked before we left?”

Brad was standing next to him, one hand on his hip, the other holding his phone’s flashlight at under the hood of the car. The bright light was out of place in the near complete darkness of the night and so was Brad’s silence.

“Marshy,” Patrice repeated again, though his heart already sank with the answer he knew was coming, “you did have the car checked before we left, right?”

“Well.” Brad scrubbed at the ground with his foot. “ _I_ checked the car. Opened the hood and gave it a thorough inspection.”

And yep, there it was.

“And what did that thorough inspection consist of, pray?”

To say that Brad knew nothing about cars was an understatement. Once Patrice had heard him refer to windscreen wipers as “those things that go swish swish in the rain”. He was quite possibly the least qualified person in Massachusetts to inspect any motor vehicle.

“Made sure nothing was on fire?”

Patrice groaned. Made sure nothing was on fire, his ass. He deserved this though. He was the one who trusted Brad with the one crucial aspect of a road trip despite knowing him for years. He deserved to be stranded on a stretch of road with no sign of civilization in sight and no phone signal for not heeding years of evidence alone. 

“In my defense I didn’t know things would subsequently sort of catch on fire now,” Brad said now. 

It was in times like this that Patrice understood the overwhelming urge most players on other teams felt to punch Brad in the face. What Patrice could make of his smile-slash-smirk in the dark grated. That he was still yapping away, instead of apologizing, inspired a rage befitting of Tuukka. 

Patrice ran a hand through his face. It wouldn’t do to fight now when he needed to think but by the God above it took effort to keep his voice even as he told Brad to please shut the fuck up for once.

“Yeah, anything you need,” Brad replied, not putting up an argument or coming back with a snarky reply just this one time, blessing of blessings.

They had driven through a town some twenty minutes ago but it would take hours on foot. Worse still, they had not seen a car since. The night was completely and utterly quiet around them, save for the sound of the ocean crashing onto the shore in the distance, and the breeze brought a chill with it despite the season. They were not campers, neither of them, and it was not a night he wanted to spend outside on the side of some forsaken road. Patrice checked his phone again but to no avail - it still had no signal.

Maybe if they waited enough they would get lucky and a car would come to their rescue.

Or maybe it would be a car full of murderers and their bodies would be discovered weeks later, half rotten on the beach.

He sighed and leaned against the car. There was nothing else they could do: they would have to take their chances. 

Further to his left Brad had since perched on top of the trunk, and was now sitting with his legs dangling from the edge. His face was turned somewhere between the road and the sky. 

God, the sky. 

It burned and shimmered with a thousand stars, brighter than anything Patrice had seen in years, a living, breathing thing.

Must have been nights like this that made ancient people gaze up in wonder, and read messages from the past and signs from the future, he thought though he was in no mood now to appreciate it in all its glory. 

*

“Don’t think anyone is coming to the rescue.” 

The sound made Patrice jump. He yelped as he hit his elbow against the car.

“Sorry,” Brad said, “didn’t mean to startle.” He sounded genuinely sorry. He jumped down from where he was perched, stretched his legs and opened the trunk.

“What are you doing?”

Brad turned towards him. The flashlight was momentarily blinding against his eye, before Brad turned it away. “Taking out blankets. It’s cold.”

Patrice remembered then, that yes, they did pack two blankets and a spare pillow too, just in case. He watched Brad carry them to the other side of the car, the narrow patch of ground facing the ocean before the bank fell away into a cliff.

“You are going to sleep out in the open?” he asked, injecting a dose of incredulity into his voice on the off chance it got under Brad’s skin. He had cooled down in the last hour but they could have been snuggled up in a luxurious bed right now instead of here and freezing and he was not letting Brad off the hook that easily.

“Ya,” Brad shot back. “Isn’t any warmer inside the car and this--” he gestured towards the sea “it’s too pretty to pass you know?”

Patrice followed his hand. The sky was twice as gorgeous towards the West, where starlight broke into a thousand reflections over the ocean; ever changing dots of light glimmered and danced on the jagged dark surface. His legs were getting sore from standing in the same uncomfortable position for too long and the night chill was beginning to set into his bones. 

He sighed again and slowly made his way around the car. Brad had spread one blanket on the ground and was in the process of pulling the other over himself. There was ample space to his left between the blankets. The space, Patrice realized, he had saved for him.

“I am ratting you out to the medical staff the moment one - or both - of us catch pneumonia.” Patrice said, clasping his arms at his chest.

“We probably wouldn’t if you joined me,” Brad replied, “sharing body heat and all that.” Patrice didn’t need light to know the exact way Brad’s eyebrows lifted up in his trademark ‘I promise to do better please love me’ look. He rolled his eyes and grit his teeth, but to no avail - Patrice had never had any defenses against that look, not once since day one.

“Just so you know,” he said as he sat down, “I am still mad at you and only doing this out of necessity. I hope that’s clear.”

He slid closer to Brad until their thighs were pressed against each other. There was something about the night that enveloped them that was breathtaking, a sense of solitude and peace that the modern world didn’t allow to exist anymore except on getaways like this. The sound of the waves against the shoreline was almost hypnotic, a soothing presence in the back of his mind.

They were stranded in the middle of bloody nowhere and it was so hard to hang on to his rational frustration, to feel anything but awe and the warmth that spread from the blankets and from Brad and filled him up.

Brad wrapped an arm around him, a little tentatively at first, ready to draw back if Patrice protested. Patrice didn’t. He leant into the touch, drew close until there was no space left between them and and his his head was resting on Brad’s chest.

“I love you,” Brad said quietly, leaning down to plant a kiss on his temple, “I am sorry for dragging us into this mess. I should have remembered to take the car in.” 

Patrice couldn’t see much of him in the dark. Just the outline of his nose and the strands of hair that fell onto his forehead. This ridiculous man who was a force of nature on the ice and frustrating beyond belief and his. Whom he still couldn’t believe he got to wake up next to sometimes, to hold in his arms, and to shout obscenities with at trash TV late at night.

“I can think of ways you can make it up to me once we are in a real bed,” Patrice replied. 

He didn’t know how to say there was nowhere in the world he would rather be right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and especially comments - I live on comments the way people live on food - are always welcome. 
> 
> I am also on [tumblr](https://blindbatalex.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi!


End file.
